Only about half of the nation’s organic operations participate in the USDA’s organic certification cost-share program. Since the program was created in the 2002 Farm Bill, approximately $60 million has been allocated to it.

The FDA is refusing to say which companies received recalled shipments of Egyptian strawberries contaminated with Hepatitis B last year — an act the agency defends as protecting companies’ trade secrets.

Let’s hear a round of applause for the journalists and advocates who rushed to the rescue when the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service pulled inspection and enforcement data from its website last week